NL West	W	L	GB
LA	80	61	-	Hill pulled after 7 perfect?!?
GIANTS	76	65	4	19 hits a most welcome tonic.
Wild Card	W	L	GB
GIANTS	76	65	-	Can finish road trip 5-5 with win.
St Louis	75	66	-	Like Giants, treading water.
New York	75	67	.5	Winning streak stopped at 6.

Yesterday

Giants bombarded Arizona, 11-3.

LA defeated Miami, 5-0, behind Rich Hill's 7 perfect innings.

St Louis defeated Milwaukee, 5-1, while New York lost at Atlanta, 4-3.

Today

Giants finish up at Arizona, going for the sweep. Matt Moore against Zach Greinke. The Arizona ace sports an unsightly 4.54 ERA along with 12 wins. He's beaten the Giants t wice this year, both times in San Francisco; the Giants got their lone win against him here in Arizona back in May. It's still summer on the desert, so it's a 4 PM local time (7 PM EDT) start.

LA finishes up at Miami.

St Louis hosts Milwaukee and New York's at Atlanta-- all daytime starts.  

Last Night's Game

Johnny Cueto pitched, everybody hit, and the result was that rarest of rare events-- a Giants laugher. Cueto, now 15-5, won his first decision in three weeks and only his second since the All-Star Break. In the 19-hit Giants attack, six different players scored runs and seven drove in runs. Hunter Pence continued his regular tear: 4 runs scored for the second straight game on a 3-for-3 night with a homer and two walks. Joe Panik and Eduardo Nunez both were 3-for-5, Brandon Crawford was 2-for-5, Brandon Belt hit a monster two-run double initially ruled a three-run homer, and Cueto himself got into the act with a RBI single. The Giants have a chance now to sweep this series and finish what has been a disastrous road trip at a most satisfying 5-5-- if they can beat Zach Greinke this evening,

I've Heard That Song Before-- Wait, No I Haven't

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made history of a most unlikely sort when he pulled Rich Hill from the game last night after Hill had a perfect game going through seven. Pitchers with no-hitters going have been pulled before, usually for pinch-hitters in a scoreless tie. But a pitcher with a perfect game in hand through seven? Never before! And LA was up, 4-0, at the time-- this was based solely on concerns for Hill's health. He had thrown only 97 pitches-- remember, he's a 36-year-old, not a rookie or youngster-- but apparently the training staff feared a re-occurrence of chronic blisters that had sidelined him earlier in the season. Given how well Hill is pitching, it's a defensible move on paper for a team that is desperate to reach the postseason and advance in it. But the commentator who deplored the "corporatization" of baseball has a point. The game itself suffers from these  types of decisions. Can you imagine Stengel pulling Larsen in Game Five of the 1956 Series?  There's a reason this was never done before, and let's hope for the sake of the game that it never is done again.